Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will answer very quickly and the Minister of State, Deputy Burke may wish to add on it. It was very significant that the legislation passed and is now an Act. MARA, in skeletal form, will be established this year. I expect it to be fully operational by 1 January 2023. It is very important that we have a streamlined planning process to harness the resource of offshore wind for energy security and offshore renewables, in particular.

I approved the workforce plan in An Bord Pleanála for additional staff, who are now being recruited. We will need more experts on the water side, in particular, and in relation to marine planning and development. Those posts will be advertised very shortly. We are already advertising for additional staff within An Bord Pleanála and there will be a very significant increase in its numbers.

I am very confident we will have in MARA a single regulatory authority, for the first time ever, that will manage and regulate all of the things that happen within our maritime area, which is seven times the size of our land mass, and will help to reverse the decline in our marine biodiversity and be able to provide clean energy for our country on a secure basis. We are well on track to doing that and having the planning framework in place that will underpin that.